


Doubling Down

by Deannie



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: 3K Round-up Challenge, Community: fic_promptly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 17:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7181447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buck should maybe try to court just <i>one</i> woman at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doubling Down

**Author's Note:**

> For the fic_promptly prompt: Any, any, (312): I remember going home with 2 girls. Woke up with 4.

The saloon was empty, save for the two of them. Inez had gone to bed a while ago and Ezra was out taking care of business. Nobody else was renting rooms upstairs right now, and the place was blessedly quiet.

“Don’t make no sense,” Buck said, shaking his head and turning a little green with the movement. He raised his hand and held up two fingers. “I remember going home with two girls.” His eyes screwed up funny as he doubled the digits. “Woke up with four.”

Nathan sighed. Chris’d be around again at some point. Hopefully Buck would have stopped blathering by then.

“Figure I might’ve, you know, drunk a little much,” Buck thought out loud. He reached for a glass of whiskey that wasn’t actually there, looking at his empty hand with a bit of confusion.

“I expect that’s true,” Nathan agreed.

Buck closed and opened his fist a couple of times before abandoning the thought. “Wonder if… Virginia, right? Or Zibah?”

“Both,” Nathan supplied, a sigh in his voice that was lost on the man in the chair beside his.

“Yeah,” Buck gave a big grin. Stupid big grin. “Twins. Wonder if maybe they went and found some friends.” He snorted, and again looked to be barely holding in his lunch from yesterday. “Was too much for just them two, I reckon.”

Nathan chuckled despite himself. “I reckon so.”

Buck looked at him a little blurrily. “So, woke up with four,” he said, puzzling it out and raising a hand like he was gonna count them again. “But… I ain’t got none, now.”

“Nope.”

“Well, hell, that ain’t fair.” Buck closed his fist and wobbled a little in his seat, face going positively white before he leaned forward.

Nathan shoved the bucket into place as Buck threw up. Again. Same way he’d been doing for the last three hours.

“Might’ve drunk a little much,” Buck mumbled in the middle of it.

Nathan looked at the bandage wrapped around the white man’s head, dotted with new blood, damnit.

“Might’ve tried picking a pair of girls who didn’t have a crazy brother,” he muttered. Not that Buck was really hearing him right now anyway. There was nothing to do but wait through the puking until he passed out again, and then keep an eye on him. Nathan was glad he’d stopped Josiah from moving Buck to the clinic. He feared that would’ve started off exactly what was occurring now without any more provocation at all.

Lord knew the man’s poor body had already had plenty.

> It had been Good that Nathan was in the saloon when the ruckus started. It was Saturday night and the place was packed, so he hadn’t heard the noises from the room Buck was “borrowing” upstairs. But he sure as hell caught notice of Buck, wearing his pants and nothing else, tumbling all the way down the stairs, blood all over his face and groaning as if he was like to die.
> 
> Zibah Halliwell ran down after him, wrapped in a shawl and wearing her petticoats, her twin sister Virginia looking only slightly more respectable.
> 
> “Oh Buck!” Zibah cried, dropping to his side at the same time Nathan did, fawning over him while Nathan checked the vicious slice and dent that had blood pouring over Buck’s forehead and into his eyes. “Buck, I’m so sorry!”
> 
> “What the hell happened?!” Nathan demanded, turning to where Inez and Ezra were standing behind him before Zibah even answered. “Inez, honey, run and get my kit in the clinic.” She handed him the rag she’d had in her hand and headed off immediately. “And grab Chris on your way back!” he called after her.
> 
> “Jeremiah found out,” Zibah told him. “You know, about me and Buck… and Ginny.”
> 
> “Jeremiah would be…?” Ezra asked leadingly.
> 
> “Our brother,” Virginia said, stroking Buck’s arm. “He burst in and started yelling, and Buck… Oh, Buck was so _brave_! He stood up to him and told him that what we did was our choice. Daddy’s dead now, and the two of us are grown women. He can’t stop us doing anything!”
> 
> Nathan could _hear_ it as Ezra rolled his eyes at her declaration. “And…?”
> 
> Zibah sighed. “Jeremiah hit him in the head with his rifle—hard as he could.” Her voice went hard. “He said a…” she choked on the hateful words but continued, “a whore’s bastard like Buck wasn’t worth the bullets.”
> 
> “Where is your brother now?” Ezra asked, quiet and very calm. Nathan’d heard Ezra cold and angry a few times before. Never boded well for whoever he was mad at.
> 
> “He ran off,” Virginia told him, regretful. “I told him I was going to tell the seven of you and you’d get him.” She gazed at Buck. “He’ll be all right, won’t he Mr. Jackson?” she begged.
> 
> Nathan didn’t answer, but checked Buck’s eyes, now he had them a little more open. He was in a bad way, but not so bad that those unfocused and roaming orbs didn’t fix on Zibah and Virginia sitting side-by-side, his smile wide and dumb as hell.
> 
> “Well, hey now, ladies,” he slurred, worrying Nathan all over with the way he sounded like his tongue weren’t quite connected. “Y’all could’ve told me you were bringing company.”
> 
> And then he’d passed out cold.
> 
> “Nathan,” Ezra murmured, clearly alarmed and trying to hide it. “Reassure me that this will not be the last time I get to remark that women will be the death of our dear Mr. Wilmington?”
> 
> “I’d like to hear that, too,” Chris said, startling Nathan into looking up finally. The saloon that had been nearly full was suddenly empty. Josiah and Vin stood behind Chris, and Nathan was glad JD was off helping Malcolm Ricketts with his foaling. Chris looked worried enough, and he’d seen Buck in worse states.
> 
> “He’ll be all right, I think,” Nathan told them all. Josiah moved forward as if to help get him to the clinic, and Nathan shook his head. “Don’t want to move him too much,” he warned. “Not until he’s awake enough to make sure he ain’t hurt his back none.”
> 
> Ezra’s eyes hardened. “I believe we should have a discussion with Jeremiah Halliwell,” he said quietly. Vin nodded his agreement.
> 
> “Take care of him,” Chris told Nathan, including Josiah in the request. “We’ll be back.”

Josiah had escorted the girls to the boarding house and was watching out, in case Jeremiah headed there looking for them. Buck came around a while later and though he was dizzy as hell, he didn’t seem to have broken anything. No thanks to that murdering cattleman.

Nathan knew Chris and the boys would find Halliwell, and he was kind of hoping he’d be called upon to take care of some hurts the hateful man might have collected along the way. Didn’t matter what she was, Buck’s mama had raised him… Hell, she’d been a better mama than Ezra’s. Better mama than most. It was real easy for a rich boy like Halliwell to cast stones.

Though Buck really did need to learn a little moderation, as Ezra would say.

“Nathan, did I get in a fight?” the battered man asked, sitting back in the chair now he’d finished emptying his stomach again. “'Cause last thing I remember, I went to bed with…” He was trying to count in his head this time, instead of using his fingers, and his expression would have been damned funny if he was drunk instead of nursing having his head stove in.

“All right, damn it. I remember going to bed with two women, but I’m _sure_ I woke up with four.” He looked around. “Where’d they go?”

Nathan sighed, a smile fighting to bust through.

Yeah, it was still _sort of_ funny.

******  
the end


End file.
